CIRCLES OF STONE (THE MOTHER PEOPLE SERIES) (29 page)

"Mother! 
Ralak!"  He called her name loudly.

Zena saw the big
male's head turn sharply at the sound of Lotan's voice.  The bigger of the
two women came up to him and put a hand on his arm, as if to restrain him.

"Toro,"
Lotan called.  "Toro, where is Ralak?" 

"No. Go
away.  Not here."  Toro waved him away frantically.  Lotan
paid no attention.  He continued to came closer, calling his mother's name
over and over again.

Kropor roared with
sudden fury.  He could barely see from his wounded eye, and until Lotan
had came close, he had not known who he was.  Now he did, and all his rage
returned.

He leaped from the
rock and charged at Lotan.  Bran grabbed a stick and ran to defend the
young male.  Zena picked up a rock and followed.  Nyta began to
scream, wrenched for the first time from her dreamy complacency.  Toro and
Metep screamed, too, and Cere's infant began to wail loudly. 

Kropor roared
again and raised his fist to hit Lotan.  Bran was just about to strike the
fist with his stick when a piercing yell broke through the pandemonium,
paralyzing all of them with its suddenness.

A tiny woman with
an infant under one arm came hurtling toward them.  She was shrieking
words at Kropor with such force that he flinched as if she had hit him. 
Zena understood the words, for Lotan had used them too.

"Bad
male!" she screamed.  "Bad male!"

Kropor's arm went
down and he stared at her in wide-mouthed astonishment.  She had come
back!  He had thought he would never see her again, and she had come back!
"Ralak!" he said, and to Zena's amazement, a huge smile creased his
face.  He beamed at the small, shrieking female as if she were the most
wonderful sight he had ever seen.

Ralak was even
more surprised than Zena.  She had expected Kropor to strike her, not
welcome her.  Despairing of ever finding Lotan again, and knowing she
could not survive on her own, she had been following Kropor, trying to summon
the courage to join the group.  And then she had heard Lotan calling her
name, and had run to defend him, and Kropor had beamed at her.

It was all very
perplexing.  Ralak nodded authoritatively, to hide her confusion, and
uttered a torrent of words Zena could not understand.  It was clear,
however, that they were directed at the big male, who had raised his fist as if
to resume his attack on Lotan.  But when Ralak's words lashed him, his body
slumped.  He looked at her pleadingly and held out a hand in a gesture of
submission.  She did not take it, for her anger was still too strong, but
she did come closer to look at his eye.

She gave a sharp
command, and Toro and Metep ran off. Totally bewildered, Zena turned to
Lotan.  But he had no time for her.  He ran to the tiny woman and
hugged her as tears poured from his eyes.  Her face alight with joy, she
tried to hug him back but winced instead.  Lotan drew away, concerned. 

"Arm
hurt?"  Zena asked Lotan.  She did not need to ask if this was
his mother.  The expression of relief and caring in his face told her
that.  But she had also noticed that Ralak held her infant under one arm,
while the other hung limply by her side.

Lotan nodded, and
anger flashed in his eyes as he glanced at Kropor, making the yellow flecks
glow like sparks.

Ralak intercepted
the glance and spoke firmly.  "No fights. I will not have
fighting." 

She looked sternly
at Kropor, then at Lotan, then back again.  She still had no idea why
Kropor was behaving in such a submissive fashion, but she was determined to
take full advantage of her apparent power over him. 

Bran came to stand
beside Ralak, to reinforce her authority.  He did not understand her words
either, but he knew Kropor had to be controlled and was willing to help. 
Even bigger than Kropor, he was a formidable adversary, and Kropor's eyes
dropped quickly.

"Now we fix
the eye.  Sit,"  Ralak commanded Kropor when she thought he was
sufficiently cowed.  She pushed his shoulder to make sure he understood.

Toro and Metep
returned with a bunch of plants and some water in a gourd.  Toro took the
infant as they handed both to Ralak.  Zena came close to watch as Ralak
carefully stripped the leaves and immersed them in water.  Her hands
itched to help, and she looked questioningly at the older woman.

Ralak nodded,
understanding.  Together, they finished  stripping the leaves and
soaking them.  Ralak squeezed gently and placed the poultice on Kropor's
eye.  Then she sat back on her heels and regarded Zena with a look so
intense and direct it seemed to penetrate all the way to Zena's heart.

Zena returned the
look without embarrassment, without restraint.  Ralak's eyes seemed
already to have laid bare her heart, so there was no point in evasion. 
Instead, she simply absorbed the feelings that came to her from this
extraordinary woman.  There was little comfort in her candid gaze, but
still there was solace, a kind of understanding, as if she had known Ralak for
a long time already.  Somehow, she seemed infinitely familiar...

A strange tremor,
like the one that had jolted her when she clung to the tree, coursed through
Zena's body.  She shook her head hard, as if to clear it. 

Ralak reached out
and patted her arm.  "We will speak of many things," she said
enigmatically.  Then she rose quickly to her feet.  The first drops
of the afternoon rains were falling, and it was time to seek shelter.

She trotted toward
the pile of rocks Zena had spotted earlier.  Zena clambered up on them and
pointed to a place where there was room for all of them to sit, and branches
could be placed overhead.  Ralak nodded vigorously and issued instructions
to Kropor and the two females.

"We help them
build a shelter,"  Zena said to Bran and the others.  They ran
to break off leafy branches and gather piles of twigs and mosses, as Toro and
Metep were doing.  Kropor stood uneasily by himself, but when they began
to make the roof, he shouldered the heavy branches and helped to shove them
into place.  Before long, they had constructed a solid shelter that hardly
leaked at all.  They piled in together as the downpour increased, and
looked at each other self-consciously. 

Kropor especially
was uncomfortable in such close proximity to many strangers, and glared at them
fiercely.  Ralak saw him glaring and hurled another barrage of words in
his direction.  He looked up at her, his eyes forlorn, and subsided in a
corner.  Ralak had come to fill a place in his heart he had not known
existed.  The agony he had felt when she had disappeared had frightened
him, and he did not want to experience it again.  He wanted only to please
her, and if that meant he must tolerate strangers, he would manage it.  He
would tolerate Lotan, too, if only Ralak would stay nearby.  He could not
bear the thought of losing her again.

Toro and Metep
moved over to sit beside him.  They were used to Kropor, and his surliness
did not bother them.  But Zena and the others were not accustomed to males
of his type and watched him suspiciously.  Agar had sometimes lashed out
at others, but he had never harmed a female, as Kropor had harmed Ralak. 
They slid as far away from him as they could get, while Bran kept his eyes on
the big male's face, challenging him.  Then Three-Legs poked her wet head
into the shelter, looking comically eager to join them.  The children's
laughter dissipated the tension.  Toro and Metep exclaimed with amazement
and delight as Zena drew the little gazelle in to sit beside her. 

Zena looked around
her in astonishment.  Only a short time ago, she and the others had been
alone, feeling miserable and angry; now they were sitting peacefully in a new
shelter with a strange group of people - and it was Ralak who had brought about
this remarkable transformation.  She looked again at the tiny woman,
marveling at her composure.  She was like Kalar in that way, except Kalar
had been quiet and slow, always serene.  Ralak was quick and energetic,
full of animation. 

Zena realized with
a start that thinking of Kalar had not brought the familiar twinge of
unbearable anguish into her heart.  Somehow, in Ralak's presence, the
agony was more tolerable.

A spasm of pain
crossed Ralak's face as her shoulder was jostled in the confined space. 
Zena frowned in consternation.  She had been so busy watching Ralak that
she had forgotten she was wounded.

She crawled over
and began to examine the shoulder with gentle fingers.  She did not feel
any broken bones, but the upper part of Ralak's arm was bruised and
swollen.  It seemed to hurt most when she moved her shoulder.  Zena
decided that she would bind the arm to Ralak's body, so it would stay
still. 

As soon as the
rain subsided, she took Sima with her and went to look for leaves for a
poultice, to draw out the swelling, and vines to bind the arm.  Thrilled
to help Zena, after all the weeks of being ignored, Sima quickly pulled down
more vines than Zena could possibly use.  Zena thanked her and bound
Ralak's arm to her side, after she had placed the soft leaves all around the
shoulder.  Then she looked resignedly at the remaining pile of
vines.  With one arm strapped down, Ralak would not be able to carry the
infant very well.  She would have to have a sling.

Keeping her head
low so the others could not see her face contort with the effort not to weep,
she set about making a sturdy sling.  For hours, she worked, squeezing her
eyes tightly over and over again to force the tears back.  A few of them
dribbled through anyway, and she gritted her teeth in anger.  She hated
them, hated everything that had caused them.  Especially, she hated the
Mother, for hurting them so badly.

Rage came flooding
back as she continued to battle her tears.  But now it was stronger than
ever because she was furious at herself as well as the Mother.  She had
allowed herself to be distracted by the unexpected events, had allowed herself
to feel almost happy again, instead of nourishing the anger that would pay the
Mother back.  She pulled at her anger, forced it to fill her, used it keep
her heart hard against the Mother and to dampen the terrible grief that
threatened to overwhelm her as she concentrated on the task Cere had loved so
well.

Bran saw Zena's
struggle; he also saw that the others were staring.  Once, he might have
teased her; now he wanted only to help.  He pulled out some sticks he had
collected and began to sharpen them with a stone.  Soon everyone's eyes
were on him instead of Zena, and all the others wanted to sharpen sticks,
too.  He sent Lupe out to find more.  Like Sima, Lupe was thrilled to
be included again, and returned with a big armful. Despite his bad eye, Kropor
especially proved to be good at scraping, and soon produced a number of
well-sharpened sticks.  The activity seemed to calm him. 
Concentration replaced the hostility in his face, and he forgot to glare.

Ralak, too, was
aware of the battle Zena was waging, but she did not try to help.  It was
good that the child struggled.  The anger and grief Ralak had seen when
she stared into Zena's eyes had to emerge.  Until they did, Zena would be
paralyzed, unable to make use of the gift that lurked deep within her. 
Only a few had the ability to see and hear and feel with their minds as well as
their senses.  Though she did not know it yet, Zena was one of these.

Tears of gratitude
came into Ralak's eyes.  Since the death of her mother, there had been no
one who could grasp what was in her mind, no one to whom she could pass on her
knowledge.  But Zena would understand; even without words, the knowledge
would go into her.  Ralak knew this because already she had seen Zena's
thoughts, felt them as if they were her own, as she had once known her mother's
thoughts.

The rain stopped
and the others went outside to look for food.  Intent on finishing the
sling, Zena did not move.  Ralak watched her carefully, keeping her eyes
soft so she would not disturb her.  But when Zena leaned over to give her
the sling, Ralak placed a hand under her chin and raised her face so she could
look into her eyes.  She saw the held-back tears, the pain, the stubborn
anger.  Shaking her head slowly, she drew the girl against her and uttered
a flow of soothing words.

Something broke in
Zena; she felt it break, as if a hard barrier had dissolved.  The tears
she had refused to shed ever since the stampede streamed down her cheeks onto
Ralak's warm skin.  With them went the anger, the terrible, paralyzing
anger.  Ralak felt it emerge and fill the shelter, and she willed it
away.  Anger, like fighting, had no place here.  She would not have
it.  Digging her fingers into the earth, she called on the earthforce for
strength.  It had helped her before and it would help her now, as she
pulled the anger from Zena's heart and sent it reeling into the clouds, so it
would never be able to enter her again. 

Zena gasped and
shuddered, her body tormented by the bitter flood that spewed from it. 
After the anger was gone, the grief that had been locked behind poured out in
great, gulping sobs of anguish.  All of it drained out of her, leaving her
exhausted and empty.  But when her sobbing had diminished, the faces of
the ones she had lost came into her mind, and the caring in her heart for each
of them filled the emptiness.  All the space her anger and grief had
occupied was inundated with the strength of her love for them.  She knew
now that even though they were gone, they were with her still.  She did
not understand how that could be, but to feel their presence within her was
enough.

As suddenly as it
had begun, Zena's weeping stopped.  She uttered a final wrenching sob, then
she laid her head in Ralak's lap and slept.  All through the night, she
did not move.  When she finally raised her head, brilliant beams of light
were dancing through the cracks in the roof.  They landed on her arms, her
head, her belly.  She lay still, feeling them course through her body. 
It seemed to her that they were giving her back the warmth and energy, the curiosity,
that had once been hers.  She smiled, and welcomed the new day.